Filmmaker Ari Folman had difficultly getting financing for Waltz with Bashir, in part because no one would embrace the idea of making an animated documentary. Although animation has grown far outside the confines of the children’s “cartoon,” apparently Folman’s idea of an animated memoir, exploring his mental block surrounding his military service during the Israeli [...]
Entries from June 2009
Waltz with Bashir
June 25th, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: Animation · Documentary · Drama · Foreign Language · Review · War
Cassandra’s Dream
June 23rd, 2009 · No Comments
One of the biggest assets that Woody Allen has as a director is his ability to assemble a tremendous array of talent for his pictures. Just about any actor seems to jump at the chance to be able to say he or she was in a Woody Allen picture, and as a result, some of [...]
Tags: Capsule · Crime/Noir · Director · Drama · Thriller
Accidental Army: The Amazing True Story of the Czechoslovak Legion
June 22nd, 2009 · No Comments
I’ve never been a great student of military history. In fact, if you asked me to explain who was fighting whom in World War I, I would inevitably get it wrong. I just looked at the Wikipedia page to get my bearings, and after the second paragraph, my brain just begins to fog up. I [...]
Tags: Capsule · Documentary · War
In the Realm of the Senses
June 21st, 2009 · No Comments
Having recently seen it’s companion piece, Empire of Passion, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, I was looking forward to seeing the Criterion Blu-ray version of the film for which director Nagisa Oshima is most recognized by western audiences: In the Realm of the Senses. While both Empire and Realm share a common narrative theme: [...]
Tags: Biographical · Capsule · Drama · Foreign Language · Romance
Seven Pounds
June 20th, 2009 · No Comments
The difficulty with films which are released under a studio’s marketing campaign of secrecy (e.g., What is “Cloverfield,” What is “The Happening,” What does “Seven Pounds” mean?) is that unless the hype generates large initial box office draw (like Cloverfield), and enough word-of-mouth to cause a second wave of interest, the majority of moviegoers will [...]
Visioneers
June 18th, 2009 · 4 Comments
The winner of the 2009 biannual Christopher Wetzel Award for Independent Film Comedy, Visioneers is a film which does proud both the comedy genre and the notion that independent filmmaking stands for the courage to tell a truly different story in an extraordinary way. The film is the collective brainchild and first feature film of [...]
Gran Torino
June 15th, 2009 · No Comments
For any artist, the ideal must be the ability to choose any project and have the resources to pursue it, without compromise and, if desired, without collaboration. For the consumer, if you will, the ideal is an artist with that type of freedom who has the talent and daring to not waste the opportunity. In [...]
Tags: Capsule · Director · Drama
Revolutionary Road
June 14th, 2009 · No Comments
Unapologetically expressive storytelling isn’t always easy to take, but it can be a powerful experience. Based on the Richard Yates novel, Revolutionary Road is such an experience. The difficulty of the story – a suburban couple’s short lived yearning for a more fulfilling life – shouldn’t be overplayed. It’s not as if this is a [...]
Valkyrie
June 12th, 2009 · No Comments
Valkyrie tells the true story of Nazi army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) and the many men and women who formed an underground resistance movement against Hitler during World War II – from within the German armed forces. Von Stauffenberg was the key figure in what was one of several attempts to assassinate Hitler, [...]
Tags: Action/Adventure · Biographical · Capsule · Ensemble · Thriller · War
The International
June 11th, 2009 · No Comments
I’ve never been a huge sports fan, but imagine that if your favorite player, at the crucial point in the game, missed the free throw or strikes out, the pain is felt a little more strongly when you know that a great talent didn’t live up to your very personal expectations. That’s how I feel [...]
Tags: Action/Adventure · Capsule · Director
Defiance
June 9th, 2009 · No Comments
Now that Quentin Tarrantino is getting attention (which he so hates) for his yet-to-be-released bloody World War II revisionist tale about a band of Jewish assassins (Inglourious Basterds), there is something even more striking about the fact that Edward Zwick’s Definance is based on a true story. A couple of ruffian brothers lead an inconceivably large Jewish [...]
Tags: Biographical · Capsule · Drama · Ensemble · War
Pygmalion
June 8th, 2009 · No Comments
For anyone familiar with My Fair Lady (captured on film in 1964), the musical version of Pygmalion, will be struck by just how similar the two works are. With a few exceptions, the screenplay for Pygmalion is simply My Fair Lady without the songs, some of which seem ready to just burst out of the actors at [...]
Tags: Capsule · Comedy · Drama · Romance
10,000 B.C.
June 6th, 2009 · No Comments
Begin with something nice, I always say. With that in mind, and the Blu-ray disc of 10,000 B.C. has the nicest of beginnings. Which is to say, when one loads the disc in the player, the movie actually begins playing right away. No really, it’s true. No trailers, no cable TV series promotions, no guy [...]
Tags: Action/Adventure · Capsule · Popcorn · Sci-Fi/Fantasy
The Secret Life of Bees
June 4th, 2009 · No Comments
The trailer for The Secret Life of Bees created an expectation that the movie would slowly build into into a overwrought, sentimental conflict movie. So I was not looking forward to the inevitable moment when my wife added it to our Netflix queue. I had expected that Queen Latifah’s August Boatwright and her sisters – conspicuously educated [...]
The Response
June 2nd, 2009 · No Comments
Actor/producer-turned-attorney Sig Libowitz, and director Adam Rodgers have shown a keen understanding of the one element missing from most courtroom dramas: restraint. While courtroom scenes in movies and television shows often have glaring factual inaccuracies, there is nothing more cringeworthy than when the filmmakers indulge in high-pitched drama in a forum which is governed by [...]
Tags: Biographical · Capsule · Drama · Short · War
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
